News Corner October 31, 2012

Hawthorne Direct, a full-service DRTV agency, announces the additions of Neil Gabriel as executive producer and Neil Klayman as senior copywriter in its Los Angeles office.

Advertisers can now use Twitter to target their promotions based on users’ gender, Marketing Land reports. The new targeting system joins Twitter’s existing mobile, geographic and interest-based targeting options already available.

A new survey from the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) finds that 10 percent of consumers use a smartphone or a tablet as their primary device for checking E-mail. Thirty-nine percent open E-mail from trusted brands on their mobile devices, while 36 percent will save messages to read later on their PCs.

Samsung shipped 56.9 million smartphones in third-quarter 2012, according to Strategy Analytics. That’s more than double the number of iPhones that Apple sold – 26.9 million – during the same period.

Apple is reportedly moving ahead to create an ad-supported streaming radio service. Bloomberg reports a deal could be reached by mid-November, with Apple starting service in the first three months of 2013.

Digital newsstand Zinio introduces an app for Windows 8, which launched last week. The app, designed to run on PC and Microsoft’s new Surface tablet, allows users to subscribe to magazines in Zinio’s catalog of 5,500 titles, as well as save and share individual articles.

Smartphones and tablets are slowly gaining acceptance among internet users in India, according to a survey conducted by mobile ad network inMobi and mobile marketing network Mobext. The research found that Web-enabled devices are already having a demonstrable effect on media consumption and shopping habits in India.

NBCUniversal posts big revenue gains for its parent company Comcast Corp. in 3Q 2012 from its Summer Olympics advertising. Total third-quarter advertising revenue from its broadcast properties was 84-percent above the same period a year ago, climbing to $2.8 billon. Overall, revenues including cable TV businesses surged 31.2 percent to $6.8 billion.

WhatRunsWhere, the online media buying service that allows advertisers and ad agencies to track competitors’ online and mobile ad campaigns, launches WhatRunsWhere Advantage, a standalone service that tracks ads across the Google Display Network. It allows smaller businesses to create and place ads across thousands of Web sites worldwide and is being offered at an introductory price of $20 per month, or $200 annually.

shopkick, a shopping rewards program company, unveils a new version of its popular shopping app designed to assist users at home as much as in-store. The app encourages more browsing and discovery through curated “Lookbooks,” showcasing items from brand partners. From Lookbooks, people can save desired products to a “safebox” and get an on-screen reminder about those items when they walk into relevant stores. The emphasis on browsing is a major shift for shopkick, which launched two years ago as an in-store shopping tool that allows users to earn points, or “kicks,” toward rewards and discounts when they visit participating retailers.

comScore Inc. introduces a tool for measuring how frequently consumers view ads delivered via websites, mobile sites and apps, and television. The tool compiles information gathered from comScore’s panel of more than 1 million internet users and through software tags on nearly 100 major content website publishers that host online ads.